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Wage and Hour Investigations
August 22, 2007
Complaint Alleges Mail Hauling Company Owes Employees $1.4M

The U.S. Department of Labor has filed an administrative complaint against Alan Berman Trucking, seeking $1,369,870 in back wages for 80 current and former employees. The complaint also seeks to prohibit the company from receiving government contracts for a period of three years.

Alan Berman Trucking had some $10 million in mail hauling contracts with the U.S. Postal Service subject to the Service Contract Act (SCA) during the time period investigated, providing services from postal facilities in the greater Los Angeles and San Francisco Bay areas.

Investigators with the Labor Department's Wage and Hour Division said they found violations on eight contracts where the company treated the drivers as independent contractors, requiring that they use their own trucks and assume all costs.

The company paid employees either by the mile or by the trip, failed to record hours worked and failed to pay any fringe benefits as required by law, the department says.  In addition, the complaint alleges that the company made illegal deductions for fuel from the drivers' pay and failed to reimburse the cost of the driver-owned trucks' maintenance and wear and tear.  The department says the company's practices resulted in the drivers' wages falling below the prevailing wage rate required by the SCA.

The back wage compensation sought covers work performed between June 2004 and February 2007.  This investigation is the department's ninth of the company, and the department says it found violations of federal labor laws during seven prior investigations. This suit names the company, as well as president Alan Berman of Woodland Hills, California, and vice president Osvaldo Tarditti of Northridge, California, as defendants.

Under the SCA, contractors and subcontractors on federal service contracts exceeding $2,500 must pay their service workers no less than the wages and fringe benefits prevailing in the locality. The Labor Department issues wage determinations that provide the required SCA wage rate and fringe benefits for each service occupation. These determinations are incorporated into covered federal contracts.